Open to Interpretation
by peppermint quartz
Summary: Shikamaru and Temari, before his fifteenth birthday. Connected to previous oneshot Reacquainting and twochapter Cherries. Naruto and its characters are not mine.


Temari pored over the syllabus.

Maybe it was the bright sunlight streaming in from the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. Shikamaru felt that she looked almost celestial, bathed in light. Almost unconsciously he began manipulating the long shadow he cast, twisting it and joining it to hers...

"Stop that." She hadn't looked up from the thick, outdated file.

Shikamaru sighed softly. "What else do we need?"

"About two years to revamp everything. This is so archaic it's funny. 'Shinobi are tools of the country, and so must obey all the commands of the reigning daimyo'. Who wrote this crap?" She slammed the file shut, coughing at the dust raised from the action. "And why am I the only one doing the work, Shikamaru?"

"Because I'm lazy."

"Glad to hear you attain self-knowledge," she sniped. The dust flecks danced about her, tiny comets tracing paths about her golden skin and blond hair.

Shikamaru stretched, feeling the tendons pop with strain. "I'm growing older, obviously I have to mature."

"You're maturing nicely, don't worry about it," Temari's reply was absentminded as she piled the files into the respective stacks. "Help me find the books on general laws and ordinances?"

"Why do we need that?"

Temari growled playfully. "I need them to justify some of these shinobi laws. Else some troublesome genius might just interpret them wrongly. Get to work."

"Slavedriver." He climbed the tall ladder to the second level.

"Slacker."

He wondered if she remembered their little session atop the cliff last year. Not that he was obsessing about it, but these days, whenever she was around, his mind would start projecting images of what-ifs. His strategics exercises, insisted upon by Asuma, now focused on some highly embarrassing scenarios if anyone else could decipher his scribblings and encrypted notes. Not that he intended anyone to find them and read them...

"...Earth to Nara Shikamaru!"

He jerked awake from his brooding. "Woman, stop calling me by my full name!" he yelled over the railing. Goodness, was the second level so high?

"Then call me by my proper name, lazybones." She stood, arms akimbo. He liked her annoyed; that slight frown between her brows, the flashing of her eyes, the slight puckering of her lips.

"Whatever, tyrant." Loaded with an armful of texts, he tottered down the stairs – and missed a step. "Whoop!"

"NARA!"

After the dust settled and the tweeting birds faded, Shikamaru found his head cradled in Temari's lap. She was peering down at him intently.

"You feeling okay?"

He forced himself to relax. Her thighs were firm and her scent enveloped him; it was far too enticing. "I'm fine, except for a throbbing pain in the back of my skull."

She shifted him to face away from her. _Damn._

"I don't see bleeding," she said as her fingers tenderly prodded his head. He closed his eyes, savoring the strange and familiar sensation of her nails almost-scraping his scalp. "Any pain? Soreness? Nausea?"

"Nada. Just embarrassment for missing the step." He tried to sit up, but soon fell back. "Okay, you forgot the dizziness."

"Oh dear." She sounded genuinely concerned, very unlike the usual Temari's sharp and insightful tone. Over the past few weeks they had traded insults and barbs over their meals and work. Now she sounded tender and soft, and very, very feminine.

"I'd like to be."

"What the hell are you talking about, Shikamaru?" She returned to her normal voice. "Are you confused from the fall or what?"

He struggled upright, fighting the spinning he felt in his skull. "I said, I'd like to be your dear. That's all. No need to explode."

She stared at him and then shook her head. "I don't get you," she said at last. "You're fifteen and you flirt like a twenty-five year old man."

"I'm not fifteen yet, Temari. Will be soon."

Temari cocked her head as she stood up. "Is that important? We've still got work to do."

_She'd forgotten already. Like I remembered things I said a year ago. But still it hurts. Damn... what did I expect?_

Shikamaru brushed the thoughts aside, and climbed to his feet. She was by his side and assisted him with getting his balance while his head swam. Her face was so close, and her fragrance stole about him.

"Temari," he asked, "why do you call me Nara sometimes?"

"Hmmm?" Her eyes looked into his. She slowly smiled. "I dunno. It fits the mood, I guess."

Shikamaru didn't relinquish his hold on her arm, even as his brain coped with the dizziness. "What mood would that be, Temari?"

"Somewhat like now, I guess."

They stood stock-still, her hands supporting him, his left hand locked about her right forearm.

What happened next Shikamaru didn't know. In an instant they had locked lips and were kissing, hard and fast and passionate. Their interlocked hands wrapped about each other; it was good she was about his height.

As they kissed frantically they stumbled over the scattered tomes on the floor and both crashed into the nearby ladder before toppling to the floor. Shikamaru rolled over and covered her body with his, and without hesitation plunged his tongue into hers.

Temari moaned as his tongue stroked the roof of her mouth, and her hands tightened about his torso. They practically inhaled each other, and their hands were clutching at the fabric they wore. Shikamaru could feel himself getting hard. Touching her again, tasting her, the sensation of smooth skin against his own... he moved from her lips to her neck, then down to her collarbone, wishing he could just undo the red sash right there and then.

She tangled her fingers in his hair and yanked the band off his ponytail. She pulled his face up to hers and kissed him again, her hands now straying to explore beneath his black turtleneck, her legs slowly beginning to welcome his intrusion. His hair fell over her face, and she brushed the hair back irritably as she kissed him. Her eyes widened as she gasped, reacting to his hands slipping up the outside of her thighs. He tore off the rubber bands holding her ponytails as well, wanting to bury his face in the sweet smell of golden locks.

"God, Temari..." He could feel himself pressing into her thigh, and wanting so very much to bury his erection into the warmth he imagined her to possess. "I want you."

She arced against him as he kissed her again, his tongue demanding a response. She uttered something, her fingers now laced about his hair, pressing his face into hers, her other hand brushing his nipples and exciting him further. Suddenly she froze.

"Not here," she rasped, her breathing shallow as he traced the contours and hollows of her neck with his tongue. "Not here, Nara, please... not now, not here."

His hands were now exploring the softness of her inner thighs, and were daring near her womanhood. She tensed as his fingers encountered the wetness, and was startled when they slipped past the flimsy satin to coax more from her. "Nara, please... stop. Stop, please, stop. Not now."

Shikamaru wanted more. His attentions were focused almost entirely on his hand now; his lips merely brushing the sides of her face. But soon he realized she was pushing at him, not with her full strength, but insistently. He pulled away.

She grabbed for her bands blindly. He sat, trying to still his raging need, watching her tidy herself into more respectable attire.

"What the hell...?" He swept his hair back, thoroughly stunned by the explosion that just happened. "That... what was that?"

"I think we... still have the fire."

_Still? So we have some sort of 'fire', huh._

She looked at him, and he was glad to see she mirrored the yearning he felt. Temari's voice shook slightly as she murmured, "But we couldn't... not here. Anyone might have walked in and seen us."

His eyes darkened apologetically. "I didn't mean to – I lost control."

"As did I," she admitted softly. Shikamaru exhaled deeply; why did he have to be a fourteen-year-old still? Then he stilled his breathing. _Two more days, Shikamaru. Just two more days._

Temari got to her knees and began packing up books, careful not to be in physical contact with the Konoha chuunin. He assisted, picking the scattered leaves that Tsunade was undoubtedly going to chew him out about.

"Your birthday isn't too far from now, right?"

Shikamaru twisted about to look at Temari. She was resolutely not looking at him. "Yeah. Couple of days."

"I see." She stacked the books on the table, and paused to scribble something. Then, without another word, Temari left the library, leaving Shikamaru in the wake of dust and confusion.

He got to his feet, tying his ponytail up, and saw what she wrote in her little black notebook, left open on the table.

He smiled and got to work.


End file.
